by L T Ryan
In that moment, just as it did with Sanchez, the mist in the air combined with the sun to give him a glow. Hatch thought of Ayala's story, the one about seeing a glow around Maria that tragic day. Then she thought about the old woman who’d claimed to have seen a similar glow around Hatch before letting them into her home, knowingly sacrificing herself for people she did not know and had never met. She looked at the Peacock Man standing before her in the shimmering water’s glow and wondered to herself, was he glowing?
The brightness surrounding Ayala, regardless of its significance, real or imagined, vanished into shadow as the man casting it fell into the water lapping at the rocky shore.
Miguel Ayala lay face down in the riverbank, exchanging a blood payment for crossing through its invisible forcefield. Hatch pulled Ayala from the water and into the raft as the second shot missed Angela, sailing by the teen’s head with only a gnat's ass separating her from an instant death.
Without Angela's body to stop the shot, it continued its path to the rubber floorboard of the raft while nicking the thwart, a long inflatable cross tube used to keep the raft rigid.
That second shot did something else, maybe not for Ayala or Angela, but definitely for Hatch and most likely Sanchez. This bullet told of its origin. When the first shot rang out and Ayala dropped, Hatch had immediately scanned the jagged horizon for sign of the shooter. The second shot gave her that.
A black, wide-brimmed hat loomed above the scope of the rifle.
Sanchez shoved the raft from shore. Hatch didn't ask the why. When she had found the shooter, so had Sanchez. A good operator is a good operator, regardless of the team they play on.
And although Hatch and Sanchez had never before worked together, the training that molded them and the battlefields they were tested on were the same. And so, they too were the same. The bond of brotherhood, of sisterhood, occurring in those briefest of shared seconds, was established in a way few could achieve in a lifetime of friendship.
The battle cry of warfare instantaneously bridges years in minutes, forging while at the same time sealing a bond rarely broken. That happened in the millisecond both realized they were thinking the same thing at the exact same time.
The car can't be reached. The only way out is through.
Hatch was on point while Sanchez steered. Angela tended to Ayala's wound.
Hatch had her Glock out the second she safely placed Ayala in the raft. She tucked her knees between the lip of the man tub and the floorboard, stabilizing her shooting platform. The wet rubber was now more blood than water as Ayala's blood steadily drained from his shoulder. Hatch pushed the gun out and fired six steady, controlled shots in the direction of the hat.
The distance would've been tough for any shooter but the fastmoving river made it nearly impossible to hit the target she was aiming at. Hatch was not just any shooter, but even her skill was tested by this obstacle. So, she did the next best thing.
To keep the impending third shot from coming, Hatch used the rounds to keep the shooter's head down. That's not to say she didn't take aim. The shots weren't delivered in a burst. Rather, she paced her shots to conserve ammo while giving Sanchez enough time to steer in front of the rock the shooter hid behind.
It was Hatch's sixth and final shot that hit its intended mark, or at least close to it. In the moment before Sanchez brought the raft past the shooter's nest and blocking the aim of the man in it, Hatch saw the bullet hole.
Hatch found it strange the shot hadn't knocked the hat off. She reasoned it must've been glued to the man's head. The third shot never came. The only sound filling the aftermath came by way of Ayala's murmured groans and the sound of the rushing water, all of which were drowned out by the hiss of the leaking stabilizing tube as they raced down the river and away from the killer wearing a peculiar wide-brimmed black hat that now had a hole in it.
Thirty-Eight
Blood leaked from Ayala's shoulder, soaking into his shirt, and transferring some of its spillage to Angela's clothes, whom Ayala had landed on top of when Hatch pulled him into the raft.
Everyone remained low, pressing themselves flat against the floor of the raft as best they could until they passed a thick cluster of trees and disappeared around the bend. With Sanchez handling the navigation of the river, Hatch requested Angela care for the wounded Ayala. When she turned, Hatch was happy to see the teen was already applying pressure. She'd undone his green fishing vest and used it to pack the holes on both sides with a relative degree of effectiveness. Hard to tell with the water mixing in, but the flow seemed to have slowed.
In the lull of the battle that followed the protection offered by rocks and trees, Sanchez offered his explanation as to why a third shot had never come after they passed by to the other side of the boulder.
He said, and Hatch agreed, it had been doubtful and highly unlikely the shooter, if still alive after Hatch's headshot, would have been capable of navigating the distance by foot. Sanchez had been correct in his assessment.
"Next place he or anybody else will be able to use will be a place called The Devil's Hand."
"What’s with all the devil this and devil that?" Hatch asked, only half-joking. After having entered through The Devil's Pass, it seemed only fitting she'd pass by The Devil's Hand on the way out. She hoped, if the devil stopped by for a visit, Hatch would get to personally thank him for the hospitality.
The cross tube looked like a popped balloon. Deflated of its purpose, the raft became less manageable for the strong ex-special forces operator steering it. Sanchez’ lean muscles worked the oar. The silver wings of the tattoo on his left forearm fluttered under the rippled tension of the constantly pulling water.
The tattooed emblem of Sanchez' former unit, the elite Fuerzas Especiales special forces unit he'd served with, depicted a green and black shield split by a yellow bolt of lightning and covered a silver anchor mounted on a silver pair of aviator wings. Under the anchor's pointed bottom were the words. Fuerza, Espíritu, Sabiduría. Strength, Spirit, Wisdom. And again, Sanchez exemplified them all. And after all they'd been through in their brief acquaintance, Hatch wholeheartedly agreed.
After navigating away from the kill zone, Sanchez explained the route used for the crossing and, more interestingly to Hatch, how he'd come upon it. After taking an early retirement from the service, Sanchez spent a month on the river in total isolation with nothing but his raft, camping essentials, and a gun in his search for understanding the post-military world. Hatch understood, because she too was on a similar path.
Sanchez told Hatch how he’d tried to wash free the invisible taint of blood covering his hands in the river’s water. In that cleansing, he claimed to have found a new path by crossing paths with a very old one. During one of those honest conversations between two people after a moment when life bumps up against death and manages to stagger forward in fragile progression, Sanchez told of his crossroads.
Long ago before border walls and fences were put up, US citizens and Mexicans alike crossed the border without challenge and often with much regularity, depending on needs and resources, and their availability. One of the most important ways in which these border towns coexisted was in sharing medical supplies and facilities. These were, and still are, places where both come in short supply.
These informal and generally unregulated crossings were a normal part of rural life for generations. As years passed, border security tightened, and these communal partnerships died off, and were fast-approaching extinction.
While at a low point in his spiritual journey down the river, Sanchez hit bottom under the shade of a tree in eyesight of his father's grave. The house he’d buried his father in was gone, as was the marker he’d made those many years ago. Sanchez could still find his way to those bones layered not so deep beneath the surface, a depth only a small child of eleven could dig. On the day his father was shot dead by cartel bodyguards mistaking his van for a potential threat, he was delivering milk. No apologies were given when the mix
-up had been realized. One of the men got out of the car and laughed at the sight of Sanchez’ father gasping his last breath. Sanchez saw that man's face every time he pulled the trigger. A cartel hitman's mistake forged a burning fire inside a boy of eleven. That fire burned out of control and all the hate and anger he felt toward the cartel was fuel to launch a personal vendetta spanning ten years of service, until the day his gun had taken the life of an out-of-her-mind wife and mother. The fire was doused by her blood.
Sanchez had to bury his father without any help. A boy of eleven used nothing but a coffee can to claw through the dry dirt. His father's death left him an orphan. His mother having died of complications during Sanchez' birth.
He had always been able to tell when his father caught a glimpse of his wife in his son. Sometimes a tear of joy, sometimes one of sadness, but every time he reflected his mother's image, his father wept.
Sanchez never thought of his mother as dead though. The unbearable pain of knowing his entrance into life had taken the mother who'd given it to him nearly crippled him. To beat back his demons, Sanchez found a different perspective.
He envisioned that in a moment where the door between life and death were open, she slipped out as he entered. In that version of his life's beginning, Sanchez met his mother at the door. He still believed time stood still while he and his mother shared a moment. She laid a kiss upon his cheek and whispered in his ear all the loving comments a mother would say in a lifetime of loving their child. He claimed to have heard as he grew to be a man. In his mind, it had been her voice he heard in the wind the day he graduated from the grueling fifty-three-week course it took to become one of the world's elite.
His mother stepped up and offered one last smile followed by a playful wink before she vanished into a thousand stars, blinding him in her brilliant light. Rafting became his connection to her, seeing his mother's radiance reflected in the shimmering droplets caught by the sun's light.
Split between the shimmering river and his father's unmarked grave, Sanchez felt it a fitting place as any to put a pistol in his mouth. It's why he brought the gun with him in the first place. He was on a one-way trip to remove the pain he felt in taking his last shot. The bullet he'd sent ended the life of an unarmed mother of a child who wore her blood a second after it left the muzzle.
He vowed the next time his finger pulled the trigger, it would be done to end his own life. It was in that darkest of places, where he found the light.
Sitting under the shade of a tree with the cold steel of his gun clenched between his teeth, Sanchez received his new calling in the scream of a woman.
Nearby, but downstream from where Sanchez sat, a woman in a flowered sun dress clung to a thick rope crossing the river choke point where less than twenty feet of water separated the two countries. A young girl screamed for help when she slipped on a rock. The mother caught her daughter by the wrist while maintaining a hold on the rope, both of which were slipping. Her four-year-old-daughter was being pulled by the water.
A terrifying scene to behold, Sanchez couldn't help but notice the oddity in that the woman and child were not crossing out of Mexico, but into it. Odder, both were American. He was left with two distinctly different paths whose choices required a fraction of a second to make, both with life ending consequences.
Sanchez made his choice with time to spare and rushed to the aid of the mother and child.
The child's hand slipped free just as he met them at the halfway point where the water was deepest, coming waist high on the mother. Sanchez' arm shot out like a bullet and snatched the girl by the collar, pulling her to safety before the river had a chance to take her.
In that gift of life, on the dirt bank of the Rio Grande River, Arturo Sanchez had been given a second chance at life. He took the gun he'd been intending to use to kill himself and tossed it into the river.
Sanchez escorted the traumatized mother and daughter the rest of the way, which turned out wasn't far from where they'd crossed. The hospital in San Antonio del Bravo was only a ten-minute walk from the crossing. Sanchez learned from the mother that a US citizen can cross the border to receive medical treatment free of charge.
Sanchez hadn't known this. Even though he buried his father there, he had only been in town less than a week when his father was shot dead. Sanchez moved on, taking refuge with an uncle in Nogales. Learning a secret about the town his father was buried in greatly intrigued him.
San Antonio del Bravo, Mexico and Candelaria, Texas, total population combined to be less than two hundred. In Candelaria, Texas, sick people drove nearly three hours to get to the nearest hospital. That is, if they chose to remain within the boundaries of the US border. The choice became easier when the hospital was a roped crossing of a river, followed by a ten-minute walk. The woman had felt an unfamiliar pain in her side and was worried for the baby growing inside her.
He saw the mother and her two daughters every now and again. They would always wave and Sanchez would send them a rare, dazzling smile. He'd been ferrying people ever since.
Born out of survival, two cultures merged to form one community, achieving a human connection unbound by any walls or boundaries.
Hatch continued to scan for a threat as the water raced them to the crossing near San Antonio del Bravo. Against the backdrop of a slowly setting sun, Hatch peered ahead at the river as it disappeared behind a large silhouette of a boulder. The water grew angry as The Devil's Hand grew larger.
Thirty-Nine
The speed at which the raft moved down the river had increased exponentially over the last several minutes. Ayala was conscious, but weak. His wrist was adorned in his father's gaudy wristwatch which dangled loosely, its jingle heard over the sound of the water.
The naming convention for the boulder they were fast approaching was spot on. The Devil's Hand looked like a massive black fist of stone. The river caught the setting sun, bathing it in a reddish orange glow. To Hatch the devil's fist looked encased in hell's fire.
"Ready." Hatch lay flat across the right side of the raft. Her thighs pinched wet rubber. Her Glock contained eleven rounds of ammunition and sat at the small of her back. Angela had adjusted and tightened the bandage around Hatch's left hand. The fire poker had done some damage, and would require medical attention, but all five fingers still responded to her subconscious commands, although their response came slowly and with an incredible amount of pain. Hatch didn't like losing her gun hand, temporarily or otherwise, to Moreno's sadistic activity but was grateful she had another. She found the simplest plans to be the best. The one concocted by Hatch and Sanchez during the final stretch of water before reaching the boulder was as simple as they got. Sanchez was going to drop Hatch off before getting to the rock. Sanchez, knowing the area the way he did, assessed his memory of its layout and selected the best possible location for an ambush. When asked why, he said it’s where he would take the shot.
Sanchez said The Devil's Hand was not one giant rock, but two. The largest boulder, the fist, rises thirty feet above the water it rests beside. Its misshapen body stretched along the bank for a hundred feet or so. The smaller boulder, the thumb knuckle where the rock formation's namesake originated, nestled itself ten feet down river from its bigger companion. The gap between the two rocks was where their shooter would most likely be. And that's where Hatch was heading.
The timing had to be perfect. Sanchez calculated an approximate window of time Hatch would have once released on the shore based the river's current. He factored it all in a matter of seconds and determined Hatch would have approximately one minute to get from the designated release point to the objective. Hatch suggested Sanchez park the boat while she swept the shooter's nest. His logic came from the sight of the black hat he'd seen, the same one that now bore the well-aimed result of Hatch's sixth shot.
Sanchez had a hushed reverence when he spoke of its wearer. And when he spoke the name aloud, Ayala, who was barely maintaining consciousness, widened his eyes and stared a
t the river guide. They called him El Vibora. The Viper.
Hatch listened to the tale of El Vibora told by Sanchez. The cartel hitman's story read more like that of a villain in a children's book. Hatch thought he would have fit perfectly in Ayala's story about the seed and boulder.
In Sanchez' retelling, one thing was abundantly clear, whether or not the tale of the killer bore embellishment. The Viper was not a threat to be taken lightly. And in honoring that wisdom, they decided pulling the raft ashore left them more vulnerable and less mobile should they encounter El Vibora or another of the cartel's hunter kill teams.
Hatch had one minute to get out of the water, cross the rocky terrain of the devil's fist, find the shooter and a vantage point to neutralize him, and all before the raft entered the crosshairs of The Viper's scoped rifle.
Sanchez promised to slow the raft as best he could. The bullet hole in the floorboard had been effectively patched but without the inflated bladder of the thwart to provide rigidity. The ability to stabilize the rubber vessel became harder the closer they got to The Devil's Hand.
Angela said it was as if the boulder was pulling them with an invisible lasso.
Sanchez offered the less fantastic and more scientifically acceptable reason for the tractor beam-like pull of the water. Currents strengthen on sharp turns, like the ninety-degree bend around the boulder. The churn is created in the dynamic shift in direction as water level changes. The Devil's Hand was a Class III Rapid, which meant they faced four- and five-foot waves crashing against the rocks lining the river beyond the turn.
Hatch was thrown overboard, and her one minute began.
Forty
An unseen rock slapped the bottom and, with the stabilizing tube deflated, Sanchez had been unable to counter its effects before Hatch went over the side deeper than intended.